Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

General Prohibitions. You (also referred to as “subscriber” or “customer”) may use our Services only for lawful purposes and in accordance with our Terms of Service (including this Acceptable Use Policy or AUP). You are responsible at all times for ensuring that your use of our Services, including by your customers/end users, complies with our AUP. You agree not to:

  • Use the Services in any way that violates any applicable federal, state, local or international law or regulation (including, without limitation, any laws regarding the export of data or software to and from the US or other countries).
  • Use the Services for the purpose of exploiting, harming or attempting to exploit or harm minors in any way by exposing them to inappropriate content, asking for personally identifiable information or otherwise.
  • Use the Services to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or reuse any material which does not comply with the other standards set out in our Terms of Service or our AUP.
  • Impersonate or attempt to impersonate Digital Edict, a Digital Edict employee, another user or any other person or entity (including, without limitation, by using e-mail addresses or screen names associated with any of the foregoing) or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person or organization.
  • Use the Services in any manner that could disable, overburden, damage, or impair the site or interfere with any other party’s use of the Services, including their ability to engage in real time activities through the Services.
  • Advertise, transmit or otherwise make available any software, program, product or service that is designed to violate this AUP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mail bombing, denial of service attacks and piracy of software.
  • Use any robot, spider or other automatic device, process or means to access the Services for any purpose, including monitoring or copying any of the material on the Services.
  • Harass, threaten, abuse, slander, or defame, Digital Edict, its agents, Digital Edict’s customers, or any other person.
  • Engage in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that Digital Edict determines to be harmful to its subscribers, operations, reputation, goodwill or customer relations.

Content Standards. These content standards apply to any and all content and use of the Services by you and/or any of your customers/end users (“User Contributions”). You are responsible for all User Contributions relating to your use of our Services and, for the avoidance of doubt, you are required to ensure that your customers/end users abide by these terms. User Contributions must in their entirety comply with all applicable federal, state, local and international laws and regulations. Without limiting the foregoing, Service may NOT be used to host, display, post, propagate, upload, download, transmit, transfer, disseminate, distribute, reproduce, sell, link to nor facilitate access to:

  • Content or services that violate any applicable export and re-export control laws and regulations;
  • Content that is intended to promote illegal activities, is unlawful, threatening, obscene, abusive, harassing, defamatory, slanderous, libelous, or hateful;
  • Content that is or promotes sexually explicit or pornographic material, violence, or discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age. This includes, but is not limited to, content that, in our judgment, includes videos or photographs depicting nudity or sexual activity or that is child pornography, child erotica, indecently depicts children, or, that poses any harm or potential harm to any child, or content that is directed at a child and is objectively reasonably inappropriate for that child.

Example of allowable content: Lingerie storefront

Example of prohibited content: Sexually explicit images/videos or links/advertisements;

  • Content that Digital Edict determines, in its sole discretion, is likely to be threatening, harmful, disparaging, or abusive to any other person, including, but not limited to Digital Edict employees and agents;
  • Content that contains private or confidential information, including, but not limited to, your or any other person’s or party’s credit card information, social security number or other national identity number, non-public telephone number, address or email address;
  • Content that promotes “Get rich overnight” and similar schemes, questionable/unethical styled content, forex sites or any other content that we feel could potentially take advantage viewers of your site. Questionable or get rich overnight content is not illegal, however, we do not allow it to be associated with Digital Edict or hosted alongside other customers of Digital Edict;
  • Content that contains any malware, including, but not limited to, software viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs or any other computer codes; files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy, impair or limit the functionality of any computer software, hardware, telecommunications equipment or other device or equipment;
  • Content that infringes on any right of any person or party, including, but not limited to a person’s or party’s right to privacy or intellectual property rights or that otherwise may be in conflict with these Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy https://www.DigitalEdict.com/legal/privacy-policy/ ;
  • Activity that causes Digital Edict’s systems or any of our IP ranges to be placed on any “black hole” list or any other mail filtering software used by companies on the Internet;
  • Unsolicited or bulk email (SPAM), including, but not limited to, using Digital Edict’s SMTP service or mail script to send out SPAM over our networks or other systems with a message referencing their website. You agree to comply fully with the CAN-SPAM Act and any amendments thereto;
  • “Snowshoe spamming” (which, generally, is an abusive technique used to send SPAM from a variety of IP addresses in an effort to spread out the SPAM load);
  • Content or services that threatens or disrupts Digital Edict’s other customers, or Digital Edict’s business, systems or services;
  • Content that contains material that, in our sole judgment, is pornographic, sexually explicit, obscene or violent in nature;
  • Content that is designed or used to hack or break into remote systems;
  • Content that is setup to function as an open http proxy;
  • Content that is designed or used to commit or facilitate any “phishing” attack;
  • Content that, in our sole judgment, is designed to function as a torrent, pirated software website or illegal or unlicensed software or “warez” website;
  • Content that, in our sole judgment, is designed to function as a “Tor relay” service or website;
  • Content that contains URL shortener validation software;
  • Content that, in our sole judgment, is designed or used to exploit, extract or otherwise gather any content or information from any Digital Edict database, including, but not limited to, incorporating data from any Digital Edict database into any email or “white-pages” products or services, whether browser-based, based on proprietary client-site applications, web-based, or otherwise;
  • Content that, in our sole judgment, is designed or used to reverse engineer, hack into, invade or otherwise gain unauthorized access into any of our systems, communications devices or resources, or any other systems, communications devices or resources (including, but not limited to security probing activities or other attempts to evaluate the security integrity of a network or host system without permission);
  • Content that is used to run any process that makes use of “unused” CPU. This includes, but is not limited to, bitcoin mining, SETI@Home, Folding@Home, etc. and
  • Content that, in our sole judgment, is designed for, used to, operated as, or for purposes of topsites; IRC scripts/bots; IRCD (irc servers); proxy scripts/anonymizers; image hosting scripts (similar to Photobucket or Tinypic); AutoSurf/PTC/PTS/PPC sites; IP scanners; bruteforce programs/scripts/applications; mail bombers/spam scripts; banner-ad services (commercial banner ad rotation); file dump/Mirror scripts (similar to rapidshare); rapid-leech (and similar);  commercial audio streaming (more than one or two streams); escrow/bank debentures or bank debenture trading programs; high-yield interest programs (HYIP) or related sites; investment sites (e.g. FOREX, E-Gold Exchange, Second Life/Linden Exchange, Ponzi, MLM/Pyramid Scheme); sale of any controlled substance without prior proof of appropriate permits; prime banks programs; lottery/gambling sites; MUDs/RPGs/PBBGs; hacker focused sites/archives/programs; fraudulent sites (including, but not limited to sites listed at aa419.org & escrow-fraud.com); push button mail scripts; broadcast or streaming of live sporting events (e.g. UFC, NASCAR, FIFA, NFL, MLB, NBA, WWE, WWF, etc.); “tell a friend scripts”; anonymous or bulk SMS gateways; websites advertised via SPAM (“Spamvertised”); organization, entities or websites listed in the ROKSO database; PayDay loan sites (including any site related to PayDay loans, PayDay loan affiliate programs, etc.); or mailer pro.

Prior Approval Required for Testing. You may not engage in any penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, or other similar testing without our prior written authorization, in our sole discretion. Any testing without our prior consent will result in immediate termination, with no refund, of the applicable account.

Monitoring and Enforcement; Termination.

We have the right to:

  • Remove or refuse to post any content or materials for any or no reason in our sole discretion.
  • Take any action with respect to any content or materials that we deem necessary or appropriate in our sole discretion, including if we believe that such content or materials violates the Terms of Service (including our AUP), infringes on any intellectual property right or other right of any person or entity, threatens the personal safety of users of the Services or the public or could create liability for Digital Edict.
  • Take appropriate legal action, including without limitation, referral to law enforcement, for any illegal or unauthorized use of the Services.
  • Terminate or suspend your access to all or part of the Services for any or no reason, including without limitation, any violation of these Terms of Service.

Without limiting the foregoing, we have the right to fully cooperate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing us to disclose the identity or other information of anyone posting any materials on or through the Website. YOU WAIVE AND HOLD HARMLESS DIGITAL EDICT AND ITS AFFILIATES, LICENSEES AND SERVICE PROVIDERS FROM ANY CLAIMS RESULTING FROM ANY ACTION TAKEN BY ANY OF THE FOREGOING PARTIES DURING OR AS A RESULT OF ITS INVESTIGATIONS AND FROM ANY ACTIONS TAKEN AS A CONSEQUENCE OF INVESTIGATIONS BY EITHER SUCH PARTIES OR LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES.

However, we cannot and do not undertake to review material before it is posted on or through the Services, and cannot ensure prompt removal of objectionable material after it has been posted. Accordingly, we assume no liability for any action or inaction regarding transmissions, communications or content provided by any customer or third party. We have no liability or responsibility to anyone for performance or nonperformance of the activities described in this section.

Additional Policies. Without limiting the generality of the above, which apply in full to all Services, the following additional policies apply to specific Services:

  • Shared Web Hosting

You MAY NOT resell web hosting space from a shared web hosting account. Any account found in violation will be notified first and then suspended if no corrective action is taken. If you wish to resell web hosting services, you need to utilize a reseller hosting account.

  • Email and Spam

Sending unsolicited bulk and/or commercial information over the Internet is prohibited under our AUP. It is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward Digital Edict, but also because it can overload Digital Edict’s network and disrupt service to Digital Edict’s subscribers. Also, maintaining an open SMTP relay is prohibited. When a complaint is received, Digital Edict will investigate and shutdown the account that is spamming. A $250 charge for violating this policy will be charged to the person initiating the Spam. Furthermore, Digital Edict reserves the right to prosecute for this violation. A $1.00 charge will be assessed PER EMAIL sent should Digital Edict choose to pursue and prosecute.

By agreeing to our Terms of Service, Digital Edict is authorized to access your accounts hosted on our networks; shared, reseller, virtual servers and dedicated servers to investigate Spam complaints.

Digital Edict has a zero-tolerance policy for Spam being sent from our networks. Knowingly allowing Spam to be sent from your server/account on our network is grounds for immediate termination without refund for any service.

  • Blacklisting policy

Abuse related issues resulting in blacklisting of our IP space will be subject to a $49.99 non-refundable blacklist removal and cleanup fee. This fee applies to websites/accounts with repeated abuse related issues, failure to comply with security policies, and/or continuous related Spam issues. Note: this also applies to repeat and/or failure to resolve security issues resulting in our IP space becoming blacklisted.  This fee is not in lieu of other rights and remedies.

  • Audio and Video Streaming/File Storage (Shared and Reseller Hosting only)

We do not permit the use of our hosting for storing/streaming large audio/video files. Small files and normal web traffic streaming is allowed, however, large sites with the sole intent of streaming videos are prohibited. This does not apply to “embedding” audio/video from other sites such as Vimeo/YouTube.

Digital Edict is not for file hosting and distribution – as such, customers may not host any files larger than 1GB in size that are observed to be available for the sole purpose of download or storage only. Files stored on your hosting account MUST be active files relating to an active website. Files that not permitted include but are not limited to .ISO, audio/video files, .EXE files. If you are unsure whether a file or file type is against this policy, please contact our support desk.

Excluded from size limits are error log files and backups generated from within the control panels located on our servers. While these items are excluded, we do not permit the use of our hosting services for storing backups. When a backup generated, it should be downloaded, then removed. Our automated systems will remove backups that have not been removed in order to ensure our backups run properly. We also do not permit the use of our servers for storing large zip or compressed files as this can also hinder the ability for us to perform backups efficiently.

  • Monitoring and Subscriber Services.

Digital Edict is also aware that many of its subscribers are themselves providers of Internet services, and that information reaching Digital Edict’s facilities from those subscribers may have originated from a customer of the subscriber or from another third party. Digital Edict does not require its subscribers who offer Internet services to monitor or censor transmissions or web sites created by customers of its subscribers; however, our subscribers remain liable to Digital Edict for the acts and omissions of its customers. Digital Edict reserves the right to directly take action against a customer of its subscribers. Also, Digital Edict may take action against Digital Edict’s subscriber because of activities of a customer of the subscriber, even though the action may affect other customers of the subscriber. Similarly, Digital Edict requires that subscribers who offer Internet services will cooperate with Digital Edict in any corrective or preventive action that Digital Edict deems necessary. BY way of example, Digital Edict reserves the right not to accept postings from newsgroups where we have actual knowledge that the content of the newsgroup violates the AUP.

Failure to cooperate with such corrective or preventive measures is a violation of Digital Edict policy.

Digital Edict will not intentionally monitor private electronic mail messages sent or received by its subscribers, unless required to do so by law, governmental authority or when public safety is at stake. Digital Edict may, however, monitor its service electronically to determine that its facilities are operating satisfactorily. Also, Digital Edict may disclose information, including, but not limited to, information concerning a subscriber, a transmission made using our network, or a web site, in order to comply with a court order, subpoena, summons, discovery request, warrant, statute, regulation or governmental request. Digital Edict assumes no obligation to inform the subscriber that subscriber information has been provided and, in some cases, may be prohibited by law from giving such notice. Finally, Digital Edict may disclose subscriber information or information transmitted over its network where necessary to protect Digital Edict and others from harm, in the event Digital Edict becomes aware of potential illegal activity, or where such disclosure is necessary to the proper operation of the system. Digital Edict will use this information in conformance with our Privacy Policy.

Digital Edict expects that its subscribers who provide Internet services to others will comply fully with all applicable laws concerning the privacy of online communications. A subscriber’s failure to comply with those laws will violate Digital Edict’s policy. Finally, Digital Edict wishes to emphasize that, pursuant to our Terms of Service, subscribers defend, indemnify and hold harmless Digital Edict for any violation of the Terms of Service, law or the Digital Edict AUP resulting in loss to Digital Edict or the bringing of any claim against Digital Edict by any third party due to the acts or omissions of you or your customers/end users. This means that if Digital Edict is sued because of a subscriber’s or customer of a subscriber’s activity, the subscriber will be responsible for payment of any damages awarded against Digital Edict, plus costs and attorney’s fees. Limited Bandwidth, Disk Space, Databases, Email, Resellers, Domains Policy, and Storage Restrictions.

Digital Edict does not currently set “hard” quota disk storage and bandwidth limits on shared web hosting accounts. While bandwidth may be “unmetered” it does not mean “unlimited”. The fair use policy is set to protect from resource abuse. If your bandwidth usage is typical of a normal website with respect to email, content serving, traffic etc., we will not limit your usage. We understand there may be times when a website has higher than normal traffic which causes a bandwidth spike; this is not considered abuse.

If your website is used for uploading/downloading large files which consume large amounts of bandwidth continuously, we reserve the right to limit your bandwidth quota to a fair amount; this is considered abuse as your hosting account is not to be used as a “file hosting service”. This is not to be confused with hosting files, you may certainly utilize your storage resources included with your plan however.

Audio/Video streaming large amounts can also be considered resource intensive and we recommend against it.

In short, if your account does not affect other customer accounts, and you do not intentionally abuse this policy, you will have no problems and need not worry about bandwidth quotas.

Add-on Domains: While we do not force strict limits on the number of add-on domains on every shared hosting account, we do reserve the right to deem a high number of add-on domains to be too many. Generally, if the add-on domains are affecting the performance of the account, we may recommend using a reseller account.

Resold cPanel accounts (resellers): Select Reseller plans do not have a set limit on the number of cPanel accounts you can create. We do reserve the right to deem too many for accounts with a large number of resold accounts. In this case, we’d recommend either an additional reseller account on a different server (a discount would apply) or upgrading to a virtual server (VPS) or a dedicated server.

These limitations are based solely on performance and stability reasons to ensure our servers run at optimal performance and maintain high availability.

Email: Accounts that contain large numbers of email accounts are subject to the fair use policy. Accounts found having large a number of connections that impact the availability of email services to other customers may require an upgrade onto their own server.

Storage Use Restrictions: We do not permit the use of hosting accounts as long term file storage unless the files are directly related to your website. This includes ISO files, OS IMG files and cPanel-generated backup files. cPanel-generated backup files will be automatically removed from our servers after 24 hours due to the large amount of resources required to backup backups. We kindly request that after a cPanel backup is generated, that you immediately download the backup and then remove it from your hosting account. Failing to do so may prevent our R1Soft daily backups from fully completing.

You may not store any of the following items on a web hosting account – this applies to both limited and unlimited plans:

  • archives, backups, file storage and file sharing
  • copyrighted material
  • ISO, IMG, large ZIP/TAR files
  • Media files not directly used by your website

Digital Edict reserves the right to notify and remove content found in violation of the Terms of Service. Digital Edict has discretion over what files/content may or may not be within this policy and will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis for the account found in violation of this agreement.

Per cPanel Account Resources: While we do not impose strict bandwidth limitations on shared hosting accounts any longer, the same resource limitations apply to both unlimited and limited accounts. These limits are in reference to inodes, processes, memory and CPU.This information can be found on the plan’s specification page.

  1. Website Owner Responsibility

Guidelines for your website:

You are fully responsible for managing, developing and the operation of your website. Digital Edict has no responsibility to perform any tasks or maintenance to the website platform that you use to promote our services. You are also responsible for ensuring the content of your website does not violate your local laws, United States federal laws or the laws of the state of California.

Digital Edict maintains and secures at the server level. Cleaning of compromised sites, scripts and applications are not within the scope of support outlined above. Our tech support will evaluate the current state of your site should a problem arise and at our discretion inform you of any changes required. It is your responsibility to properly secure and maintain the websites you choose to host on your web hosting plan, including WordPress hosting, shared hosting, reseller hosting and servers.

The scope of support for individual accounts located on any shared account, reseller account or stand-alone server (including managed VPS and dedicated servers) is limited to the server-side security and functionality. Direct customers and resold customers must maintain user-level security in regard to email accounts, email forwarders, websites/applications, FTP accounts/applications as well as any user-accessed content/accounts.

Please note, Digital Edict does not provide web development or coding services. In the event a problem arises our staff will make a best effort, however, we are not responsible for ensuring your scripts/code/applications are properly configured and/or coded. In the event of a coding/application problem, we strongly recommend working with a developer.

You, the website owner, are responsible for securing and maintaining your website while it is hosted on Digital Edict’s networks and servers. Digital Edict is not liable for compromised websites and/or outdated scripts/content that becomes exploited.

We hope this AUP is helpful in clarifying the obligations of Internet users, including you as a Digital Edict subscriber, as responsible members of the Internet. Any complaints about a subscriber’s violation of the AUP should be sent to [email protected]

Updated: Febuary 22, 2019

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